House Asks Bush to Report on Reactors in Space

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: August 1, 1989

THE House of Representatives last week called on the Bush Administration to investigate and report on problems caused by nuclear reactors orbiting the Earth.

Radiation from such reactors has for years been interfering with scientific satellites that measure gamma rays, and the disruption has recently grown worse as more powerful reactors have been placed in space.

The specific legislation was an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill for the fiscal year 1990. The amendment was introduced by George E. Brown Jr., a California Democrat who is a member of the Science, Space and Technology Committee and cochairman of the Congressional Space Caucus.

Rep. Brown said the move was part of a campaign to curb the use of space reactors by both the Soviet Union, which has them now, and the United States, which plans to use them in the future. Data Become 'Useless'

''We should not on the one hand spent hundreds of billions of dollars to support scientists in their efforts to expand our knowledge of the universe, while on the other hand proceed with plans for the deployment in Earth orbit of large numbers of nuclear reactors that make the data from gamma-ray satellites useless,'' Mr. Brown said. A similar measure is to be introduced in the Senate by Dale L. Bumpers, a Arkansas Democrat. Backers of the measure say it has a good chance of becoming law.

Mr. Brown's move was prompted by disclosures last year that radiation from Soviet nuclear reactors in space was hampering the operation of an American satellite known as Solar Max, which was intended to measure invisible gamma rays from the Sun. Escalating Concern

Similar radiation was also seen as threatening the success of a $500 million observatory to be lofted by the space agency in 1990 to study gamma rays produced by stars, galaxies and baffling cosmic events.

Concern about the pollution problem escalated in January when Soviet scientists disclosed that they had launched into space an advanced new class of nuclear reactor that is the most efficient, long-lived and powerful ever to orbit the Earth.

The United States, meanwhile, is developing a still more powerful space reactor, known as the SP-100, which is envisioned for use in Earth orbit to power space weapons.

In a statement, Mr. Brown quoted a report prepared last year by the Defense Intelligence Agency and recently declassified. Report From the President

''If the number and operating power of space reactors increases,'' it said, ''the ability to conduct X- and gamma-ray observations from near-Earth platforms will be severely restricted.''

Mr. Brown's amendment calls on the President to submit to Congress a report on the potential for interference with gamma-ray astronomy missions that could be caused by the placement in Earth orbit of space nuclear reactors. The report must be filed no later than April 30.

Mr. Brown has introduced separate legislation, H.R. 966, calling for an international ban on the placement of nuclear reactors in orbit and limiting their use to deep space missions.